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Maker's Write Up
A very light and solid solo canoe. The boat is symmetrical with the seat positioned just behind center to lift the bow. The molded seat is attached with claw feet to the chine rods. Therefore, the seat can be moved forward, or aft, to allow trimming of the canoe. The boat paddles well and provides a comfortable and fast tripping option for the soloist. It is easy to maneuver and responsive to the slightest paddle stroke, making it a fun ride for any paddle expert. Initial stability is excellent and it settles comfortably on the water. The canoe’s low weight make portage and transport easy.

The good things about this boat:
It is light. Which helped a lot with the portaging.

It want to go straight espacially for a 13 ft boat. So that is good because, it supposed to do that.
On the first day I saw Elveys turning really nice on a single stroke. And I could not do that at all. We switched boats for a while, and it made it clear to me that it was the boat that was keeping me back.
I found it quite difficult to edge the boat that far that you can get the ends out of the water.

It is nice stable, both first and second stability is fine. That is what I think and digger found it as well. After paddling flatwater C1 long time ago anything is for me stable. So thrust him instead of me.

Very handy on this trip was that I did not have much twarts, seats or airbags in front of me so I could get flat in the baot to get under a number of obstackles.

In 2008 Ally has changed the seats. This boat had this new seat in it. I liked it. you can change the angle of the seat. so if you want to kneel you can tilt it forward, If you want to sit you can have it straight.

I only tested this Ally for a few minutes, playing around while others were taping their damaged boat.

With only 13" I wouldn't expect the canoe to track that well. It's 13 feet without any rocker, a sharp bow and a round hull. I thought I would be able to turn it on the spot, but needed a considerable amount of heeling to do so.

As Lennart already said stability is good. Sitting in it the canoe feels comfortable and it takes quite some effort to heel the gunwale to the waterline. This boat is hard to tip.

Specs say that the gunwale width of the Pakcanoe I tested some time ago should be only one inch wider than the gunwale of this Ally. Paddling the Ally it felt much narrower and more comfortable as a solo as a result.

I wouldn't generally say this about any Ally, but the 13.7 is a good looking boat and it has some nice paddling characteristics. I would generally prefer the look and feel of a Pakcanoe, but I wouldn't mind adding a 13.7 Ally to my fleet.

thanks lennart and digger for your comments on this canoe. when buying my folder (pakcanoe 165) i was also briefly considering this newer design from ally. i was looking at something longer than this one, though. this kind of confirms my choice as it sounds like a longer version of this hull would be even harder to manoever especially solo.

We were recently having another look at this boat and noticed it has a slighly negative rocker if not in the water. As a result the boat will not form lesser (if any) rocker while you are paddling it unlinke other solo folders.

Freestyleability however suffers severely from the aluminium frame. Even with three layers of foam it is not exactly a joy to move around on your knees (only thinking of it makes my kneecaps hurt again).

For correct trim I recommend mounting the seat facing the thwart, i.e. different to what you can see on diggers fotos of lennart here.